‘Liberia’s Ebola worse than civil war’

The current Ebola situation in Liberia is ‘worse than the civil war’ as the deadly disease continues to claim lives in the Western African country, according to Malcolm Joseph executive director of the Centre for Media Studies and Peace Building in Liberia.

The country, which suffered a total of 11 years of civil war between 1989 and 2003, has been brought to its knees by the deadly virus, which has also reached Sierra Leone and Guinea and killed at least 9000 people.

According to Joseph, everything came to a halt as the Ebola disease broke out in Liberia February last year. He said there is no education, as the schools and colleges are closed, businesses are not moving, the city is empty and people running away.

Joseph added that the government was confused when the hemorrhagic fever broke out in the country which led to the fast spread of the disease.

He added that Liberia’s limited health facilities meant they had to send samples to Guinea for tests until the country managed to get an Ebola Treatment Unit.

He also criticised the response by the Western world, saying their help arrived when “Ebola was on its way out”.

Reports have it that when the outbreak began, Liberia had only one doctor to treat nearly 100,000 people in a total population of 4.4 million people.

The country recently imposed emergency measures, such as community quarantines and a system of medical roadblocks to prevent the virus reaching cities.

Meanwhile, the number of new cases of Ebola has risen in all of West Africa’s worst-hit countries for the second week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

This is the second weekly increase in confirmed cases in 2015, ending a series of encouraging declines.

WHO said on Wednesday that Sierra Leone had registered 76 of the 144 new cases, Guinea 65 and Liberia three.